


Suspension

by bleustocking



Category: House of Usher (1960)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossdressing Incest Roleplay, F/M, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, anyway here's wonderwall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:22:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27828211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleustocking/pseuds/bleustocking
Summary: His heart is a suspended lute; As soon as you touch it, it resonates.Madeline Usher escapes her fate, but can Philip and Roderick?
Relationships: Philip Winthrop/Madeline Usher, Philip Winthrop/Roderick Usher
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Suspension

Philip Winthrop entered his twenty-first year expecting to be married and settled. His inheritance had come in and he had met an eminently suitable girl — Madeline Usher. Madeline was bewitching and beautiful, and though she said little about her past, she allowed Philip to fill up the silences with his own plans and ambitions. Their future life together would be grand indeed. 

They spent a blissful month together, which only ended when Madeline told him that she had been called back home. When he eagerly volunteered himself to accompany her, she rejected him. 

“My brother would not like it,” she said, looking out of the window. Philip admired her profile, like a cameo cut in ivory. 

“If I go with you, I’m sure we can convince him together,” Philip said, taking her hand. 

Madeline looked at him for a moment and smiled briefly. “Perhaps _you_ would charm him, Philip.”

“Dear Madeline!” he cried, taking her delicate hand. “Let me try.” 

But the next day, Madeline was gone. Philip would have expected her to send word to him when she arrived home, but no such word came. Then, the rumor reached him that Madeline had left Boston by train, heading west. This made no sense, for Philip had been sure she told him that her ancestral home was in the north. 

Philip could not imagine why Madeline would have abandoned him. She loved him as sincerely as a child. He was certain of it. There must have been some terrible mistake, she must have fallen under some terrible confusion — Philip thought if he waited, she would return.

Months passed. 

The debutante season, the cause of their first meeting, ended and the year’s flowery young virgins found matrimonial bliss in their fate-appointed roles. 

But not for Madeline and not for him.

Finally, Philip resolved to seek her out at the last place she had mentioned — her ancestral home, where her brother still lived. 

It was a long journey to the village, for the railway did not penetrate deep into the dismal swamp that surrounded the manor for many miles. Philip hired a horse at the village from a sullen rustic whose ugly face darkened further when Philip told him the place he sought.

“The Ushers have no dealings with us,” he said. “Their man Bristol comes into the village sometimes to sell a trinket or two at the pawn dealer, but otherwise they are still very high and mighty there.”

“You should not criticize your betters in this way,” Philip replied, ignoring the way the man’s face twitched with irritation. He could not countenance his memories of Madeline, dressed refreshingly in her summer whites, ever being a part of some dying line, forced to pawn their valuables to eat. 

It was impossible. He decided then and there that the Ushers were no doubt victims of envy.

*

Philip’s meeting Roderick seemed to happen in a dream, though the older man evinced no surprise to see him there. Philip was immediately disappointed to learn that Madeline was not with them. After some gentle prodding, Roderick admitted that he had received a letter from her, postmarked from a strange Western locale. 

When Philip asked to see the letter, Roderick seemed to wilt against the velvet chaise-longue. 

“I cannot speak of it just now,” he said, pressing a thin white hand against his forehead. Everything about Roderick was thin and white, like an insect that had lived too long under a rock. 

Philip tried not to stare at him too long or too hard. 

He had nothing of Madeline about him. Philip would seem a better choice for her than he — in Boston, the two of them had been feted as being a matched set, both dark and and both so very pretty.

Roderick was old and nervous, a shivering wreck of a man, though luxurious dressed though he was in a stiff velvets and brocades. He seemed to be from another, more formal world. He spoke and acted queerly. Philip could not understand him, and he had information from Madeline to rely on. She had barely ever mentioned that she had a brother. 

And yet Roderick did not seem like a man likely to escape comment. 

Indeed, Philip had never met someone as uniquely designed for suffering as Roderick Usher. He took his sister’s disappearance to heart, deeper than perhaps even Philip did. He had been taken immediately ill, Bristol said to Philip. Bitterly, he said that he had known this would happen when he had allowed her to go to Boston. 

Philip protested this -- he was sure he had never led Madeline down the wrong path. Roderick merely stared at him. “So where is she now?” 

“You know I don’t know,” Philip protested. 

“There you have it!” 

“You have the letter,” Philip said. “Let me see if she left some clue or hint of where she has gone.”

“No,” Roderick said instantly. The harshness of his tone seemed to exhaust him. Softer, he said, “The letter will tell you nothing that I have not. As you see, I am grieving for my sister. I’m glad you came, for that has at least allayed my suspicions that you had something to do with her disappearance.”

“I!” said Philip, surprised. “It’s true that I wished for Madeline to remain with me in Boston, but she insisted on returning home. That she neither came here nor returned to Boston is astonishing to me. And the thought that I could have done something to her is —”

“Disgusting, ungentlemanly, inhumane,” Roderick said, sitting up from his chair. He clutched at the arm of his chair. His eyes burned bright. He was in a frenzy. “You are right. I venture beyond forgiveness in my grief.” 

He reached out towards Philip in a silent plea. Reluctantly, Philip took his hand. Roderick brought to his lips — his cold, thin lips, which nonetheless twisted in faint mockery of a smile — and kissed it. 

“Your forgiveness is as divine as your name, Philip Winthrop. Please stay here with me for a day or two. I will find the strength to show you the letter. I promise I will.”

Philip agreed to stay.

Roderick murmured his pleasure at Philip’s choice. Then he sent him away to dress for dinner, though Roderick himself would not partake, for his own appetite was extremely delicate.

*

That night, Philip dreamed of Madeline. 

She came to him in a white nightgown, her dark hair loose and her face pale. She seemed to have a page from the twisted portraits of her ancestors and her aura seemed to throb with strange and intense colors. Philip was neither repelled nor alarmed. He held still as she approached him and when she bent down her head, her blood-red mouth hovering over his, Philip sighed. 

His mouth opened -- but not to protest. 

But she would not kiss him. Instead, she darted away as soon as he reached for her. When he awoke, he could have sworn that he heard a light, feminine laugh echoing through his dreary chamber. 

Philip shivered. When he lit the red candle that Bristol had given him — when he asked for a regular white one, the elderly retainer had looked depressed and said that Roderick only allowed red candles in the house — and he was astonished to see a white nightgown laid out on the bed, as if its owner had just put it down for a moment. He could see immediately that it was the same as the one Madeline had worn in his dream. 

Without thinking of it, he took it up and pressed his face into the white lawn fabric and breathed in the lingering scent of her skin. From that action alone, he pulled it over his head, seeking to surround himself in the essence of his vanished lover. 

But Madeline was not there. And her nightgown did not smell of her. Philip’s temples throbbed and it seemed to him that the chamber throbbed too. 

This was the state that Roderick found him. 

“I heard noises, which I cannot abide at night —” Roderick breathed out, the candle-holder in his hand throwing out a shaking light through the chamber. He stilled, taking in the scene. “O Madeline!” 

“She is not here,” Philip said, turning to him. He clutched at the nightgown at his chest but when Roderick crept forward to touch it -- to touch him -- he allowed it. They both mourned over it, taking pleasure in the soft touch of it. Philip’s heartbeat so strongly against his chest that he thought Roderick could perceive it, and become disturbed. 

The phantom presence of Madeline dissipated and left them alone.

Roderick lifted his tragic eyes to Philip’s. “As you wear this, you look so much like her.”

“I — I’m a man,” Philip said. He could not dispute their resemblance. It was too strong to be denied, though he badly wished to. Roderick looked at him intently, his forehead wrinkled in concern. 

“Winthrop, are you perhaps -- unwell?” 

“No!” Philip said, as he fainted. 

*

Philip woke to the sound of Bristol bringing in his breakfast. When he had thanked the servant for his services, he asked if some letters had come to him. The old man shook his head, the hangdog expression never leaving his face. “Post doesn’t come on Sundays, sir.” 

“Sunday!” Philip exclaimed. “But surely it is Friday --” 

But he discovered it was not so -- he had been in bed for almost a day and a half. He felt almost faint again in learning that. When Roderick swept in later, Philip was still struggling to dress. His valet, Desmond, had given his notice two weeks ago and Philip had not found the time to replace him. 

“Let me assist you,” Roderick said and the mere thought of his cold hands touching him should have filled Philip with distress. Instead, so queer was his frame of mind that he allowed it. Allowed -- and perhaps even enjoyed it. 

At the end of it, Philip was dressed and Roderick took to one of the many chairs in the room, his color high. 

“I have overtaxed you,” Philip said, adjusting his cravat. Roderick sighed and reached out his hand. Philip took it. A strange friendliness fell upon them, which lasted all that day. 

*

The new few days fell into the same frustrating pattern. Philip requested to see Madeline’s letter again and again, while Roderick sought always to delay him, or defer it to another time. Philip knew that some of Roderick’s hesitation was out of loneliness -- there was no one to talk to in that strange house but Bristol, but nonetheless, he felt keenly the passage of time.

Finally, when he had been at the mansion for a month, Philip decided to act. He and Roderick had fallen into the habit of drinking freely after dinner. Roderick would describe the exploits of his famous family with unnatural glee, while Philip would struggle to keep his eyes open. 

But not that day. Roderick had given him a tour of the family crypt -- located in the very cellar of the building -- and sticking out of the casket intended for Madeline, Philip spied an envelope sticking out. He recognized the pink and white flowers -- he had gifted Madeline the set only three months before. 

This was the letter he sought -- why Roderick had tucked it into such a dreadful place, he could not imagine. He let Roderick drone on about the Usher family’s unusual funeral arrangements -- both his and Madeline’s caskets had been made within six months of them reaching the age of majority -- and reached out to snatch the letter away. 

Something had caught hold of it and the letter tore, the sound of it unnaturally loud in the quiet of the crypt. Roderick fell silent, his eyes wide and panicked, like a horse about to bolt. Saying nothing, Philip read the letter and then let it fall to the ground. 

“Why did you do this to me?” he asked Roderick, who crumbled to the ground, letting his red velvet robe snag against the cobwebs of the crypt. 

“I wanted -- I only wanted you to stay a little longer! She was delighted in you and so -- was I!” 

Madeline’s letter was blank, save for one word. 

_GOODBYE._

*

The house shook and moaned as Philip packed. He could hear the sound of Roderick weeping, the strain of it was too much to bear. He was weeping for himself, the selfish creature — not for poor lost Madeline, or for Philip, whose future had been so completely altered. Roderick only mourned for himself.

With a frustrated sigh, Philip stopped what he was doing and threw himself into bed. Such was the strain on his nerves from the last month or so that he thought he would go mad. His actions jostled his carpet bag and the slim black case that held his cannabis cigarettes fell out. Doctor Scott had prescribed it for Philip’s asthma and cure the case of nervous exhaustion that had caused him to leave Harvard. 

He lit a cigarette and frowned out the window. He had to accept that he had no reason to stay here. Madeline was gone. Roderick was mad. And Philip wasn’t feeling much better himself.

He did not turn around when he heard a rustling at the door. “Look, Roderick, I’m leaving tonight. No need to rush me.”

“What is that you’re smoking?” Roderick asked, slithering into the room. He was wearing a black velvet robe and he looked like a corpse — a dignified one, but a corpse nonetheless.

Philip finally looked at him. Considered him deeply. “It’s medicinal. Would you like to try it? They say it puts some people’s minds at ease.”

“That would be impossible for me,” Roderick declared. But still he crept closer and eventually he stole the cigarette from Philip’s mouth. Philip laughed, startled at his boldness and realized that was the first time he had laughed in this dreadful place.

He and Roderick proceeded to smoke the rest of Philip’s cannabis cigarettes, to the point in which they ended up entangled in bed. Philip woke to a room wreathed in smoke. He realized that one of them must have dropped a match on the curtain or rug.

He tried to wake Roderick up, but the man was insensible. 

“Sir, stir yourself!” cried Bristol from the door. “The house finally did it!”

“Help me carry him,” Philip said as the two of them dragged Roderick out of the room. And not a moment too soon, as the fire followed their steps feverishly. 

Roderick came back to himself when they were descending the stairs. “No!” he cried, clutching at Philip’s collar. “Throw me back into the fire! I must be destroyed along with the rest of the Ushers!”

“You can destroy yourself later,” Philip said roughly and Roderick fainted dead away again. 

*

It was five months later, in a resort on the seashore, that Philip received a letter from the stationary he knew so well. He left Roderick contending with the seagulls and read the letter. It was from Madeline and seemed as though she was whispering the words into his ear. She asked for forgiveness — she said that she knew that if she returned home, or stayed in Boston with him, her brother’s dire predictions would come to pass. 

And so she hadn’t -- now new vistas opened before her. She had even found something of a cure for her catalepsy -- her new doctor, a woman, said that it was partially from her anxiety. 

With a sigh, Philip burned the letter -- he would do what she bid him and let Madeline go. She had done what was best for her, and now he must do what best for him. Bristol came with Roderick in his wicker wheelchair, fretting about the deadly heat of the sun. 

“Seashore or no, we’re still in Massachusetts,” Philip reminded him as Bristol made preparations for lunch. They were having spring chicken with tender green peas and soft white biscuits. No gruel, this time. 

“What was in the letter you were in such a hurry to read?” Roderick asked him curiously. Philip felt a great temptation to lie to him — perhaps for his own good. Roderick was a hypochondriac, a melancholic and given to many flights of fancy — but over the course of these many months and years, Philip had grown fond of him. Perhaps even love him. 

So he told Roderick the truth. He watched the change that Madeline’s name provoked across his face. When he asked, intensely, where Madeline was now, Philip replied sternly that he did not know.

“She’s beyond both of our grasp now, Roderick. Let the House of Usher lie in its tarn. You two are free of it.”

“Freedom,” Roderick said, shaking his head slowly. “I have such doubts --” 

“Doubts are a part of life,” replied Philip, a tad heartlessly.

Roderick was overtaken by a fit of gloom, but he had recovered enough by evening to agree to go to the theater. The local summer stock company put on _Macbeth_ and Roderick liked that it ended with Macbeth’s head bouncing around the stage. Philip indulged him. 


End file.
